The ConnectWise Keynote at IT Nation Secure 2022
This was the first year we could hold IT Nation Secure without any capacity restrictions, and the energy in the room was palpable as I kicked off the event. It was great to be back in person to connect with security industry leaders and like-minded peers who are making cybersecurity a priority.
Fellow members of the ConnectWise leadership team discussed the many challenges facing MSPs—from ongoing supply chain issues to an increase in cyberattacks on MSPs to the talent shortage. This included information about the current cybersecurity climate and what ConnectWise is doing to help you as MSPs to secure your business, secure your customers, and grow your cybersecurity practice.
Check out the exciting announcements from the IT Nation Secure 2022 keynote address, or watch the full keynote here.
Partners grow with ConnectWise programs, products, and services
Currently, over 7,000 ConnectWise partner companies are using our cybersecurity products and services, and most are showing significant growth in their cybersecurity practice. We love hearing our partner-focused product innovations are making a difference for you.
Our internal data also shows that members of our Partner Program are growing three to five times faster than partners who aren’t enrolled, depending on what level of the program they are in. If your customers are asking you what you’re doing about cybersecurity, this program is for you!
Below is a full list of the key product, service, and resource announcements from IT Nation Secure.
ConnectWise product, service, and company updates
1. AsioTM platform and cybersecurity
Asio, our modern platform with unmatched performance, scalability, and security was announced last year along with the migration of ConnectWise RMM onto the platform. This year we’re pleased to announce the first cybersecurity product that is fully built in the new platform: ConnectWise Risk Assessment. This product simplifies your user experience, allowing you to quickly access endpoints and scan them for vulnerabilities, run dark web scans to see if your passwords have been published there, and assess your email spam setup to find vulnerabilities.
This is just the beginning of the ConnectWise cybersecurity vision, which includes:
- Simplification for all things cybersecurity
- A centralized location to handle all your tasks in one place—from ticketing to solving security issues
- Cybersecurity integration into the Business Management and Unified Monitoring and Management solution portfolios
2. Cross-product integrations
To simplify the cybersecurity experience even further, we also announced that we’re adding cybersecurity-relevant content into other products.
- KPI reporting and dashboards: Our KPI reporting and dashboard solution, backed by BrightGauge, already comes with out-of-the-box and configurable dashboards. Importantly, you can also use other data sources to build cross-product dashboards.
- IT Documentation: This product, backed by ITBoost, has 10 standard operating procedure (SOP) templates going live, including incident response, information security policies, and more.
- PSA: More templates are coming to our PSA, including security onboarding, incident response, and security alert handling.
3. ConnectWise Incident Response Service
It’s not a matter of if but when you or your customer will experience a cybersecurity incident and the dreaded hours to days of downtime. When things go bad, we have your back with our new Incident Response Service. With retainer or on-demand options, you have all the backup you need to quickly contain and remediate issues as well as services to monitor for reinfection for one month and determine the root cause, including a report of recommendations for the future.
4. Cyber insurance partnerships
It’s getting more complicated and expensive for you and your clients to get cyber insurance, but you can’t ignore getting coverage. We’ve partnered with ControlCase and FifthWall to demystify and simplify the process. With ControlCase, we created a free plugin that guides you through a cybersecurity assessment that certifies that you’re practicing good cybersecurity. With one push of a button, you can then automatically fill out an insurance questionnaire with FifthWall, an insurance broker. After your info is submitted, you’ll receive insurance quotes from a number of underwriters. It’s hard to imagine a simpler insurance process.
5. Industry cybersecurity awards
We believe that industry awards, especially those that are voted on by product users, are a testament to our dedication to our partners and product innovation. We’re especially proud of ConnectWise colleagues who get singled out as industry influencers and leaders. This year we are humbled to receive several awards from the 2022 Fortress Cyber Security Awards and at the RSA Conference 2022.
6. ConnectWise company structure
To better serve our partners, we formed new General Manager-led business units and appointed a new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Patrick Beggs, to speed up innovation and improve partner experience. Expect to hear more about innovations and updates from these business units in the coming months and years.
7. The 3rd annual MSP Threat Report
You can find a lot of cybersecurity information, but it’s more challenging to find information that matters most to you as an MSP business. That’s why we’ve released the third annual MSP Threat Report. It’s researched and vetted by our highly trained ConnectWise Cyber Research Unit (CRU). It includes MSP-specific information on the current threat landscape and actionable insights for keeping your business and customers safe. We’re delighted to offer this as a free resource for our partners and the industry.
8. ConnectWise MDR™ with Bitdefender
Many of our partners already use Bitdefender as part of their endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution, but that solution just got better. We’ve created a managed detection and response (MDR) solution with the combination of auto endpoint detection under the watchful eyes of the ConnectWise SOC: ConnectWise MDR with Bitdefender. It’s an easy way to access cybersecurity incident resolution expertise through our SOC, so your team can get out of the alert fatigue loop and focus on other essential aspects of your business.
9. ConnectWise product and incident communication
We promised to make it easier to do business with us, and to help keep that promise, we created a partner communications center. This is a one-stop shop where you can quickly access ConnectWise bulletins and incident information, industry advisories relevant to MSPs, and other resources for connecting and communicating with us. You can also subscribe to product status alerts at status.connectwise.com.
10. Product renaming overview
Once again in our efforts to make it easier to do business with us, we chose to simplify the naming convention of our products and services. The new names are more common industry terms and descriptive of the functionality of each solution portfolio, product, service, and feature. Below is a detailed list of name changes for our cybersecurity offerings.
